Snapshot 2014: Stephen Ormsby (Satalyte Publishing)

Stephen C. Ormsby was a novelist with 2 books published by small press in America, before moving into publishing with his wife, Marieke.

Find Satalyte online at http://Satalyte.com.au, on Twitter at @SatalytePublish and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SatalytePublishing

1. Satalyte Publishing is a fairly new operation, but you’ve hit the ground running – what made you decide to start your own publishing house?

I had a couple of novels published in America through small press, but had terrible trouble getting them to Australia. As I say, I threw a tantrum in the corner, stomped my feet and told my wife, Marieke, that I’m going to start a publishing house. Her reaction was ‘umm, okay, you do know that we are pregnant.’ I replied that can’t be that hard. We still laugh about that one. Well, at least one of us does!

2. In less than 12 months you’ve released nearly 20 books – that’s an astonishing achievement! How have you selected the projects and found the time to produce them all?

Finding time, now that a fun question. We are actually doing this full time at the moment, and hope to continue doing so. When we opened submissions, we found that there was so much interesting stuff out there. It was so hard to knock them back, and that leads to our unfathomable workload.

3. What’s coming up next for Satalyte?

We hope to continue at the frenetic work rate, and if all goes to plan, we should release some 30 novels in the next year. We will still be on the convention trail, and look like hitting Conflux, Supanovas as well as a number of book launches. Lots of kilometres to travel.

4. What Australian works have you loved recently?

To tell you the truth, I do not get that much time to read anymore. I am mostly editing, and am finding hard to read works without looking through an editor’s eye. There are so many that I would like to read, but they are just stacking up on my TBR list.

5. Have recent changes in the publishing industry influenced the way you work? What do you think you will be publishing in five years from now?

Another honesty – I do not have any real knowledge of the publishing industry five years ago. I was only a reader, and a part time writer. I had never considered that I would be doing this even that time ago.

I believe we will see that print will come back, with ebook plateauing. I see that Australian authors and their respective works will find more relevance in the market, through the hard work of a new wave of presses and the stalwarts.

In five years time, I hope to have Satalyte Publishing in a position that we will be able to publish the best Australian writing to the world.

This interview was conducted as part of the 2014 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’ll be blogging interviews from 28 July to 10 August and archiving them at SF Signal. You can read interviews at: